Eid al-Fitr(عيد الفطر) in 🇹🇷 Turkey

Eid al-Fitr in Turkey is called Ramazan Bayrami or, more popularly, Seker Bayrami, the Sugar Festival, reflecting the central role of sweets in the celebration. The three-and-a-half-day public holiday begins with morning prayers at mosques, after which Turks embark on an extensive round of family visits that follows a strict social protocol: younger people visit their elders first.

When visiting elders, the traditional greeting involves kissing the elder's hand and touching it to one's forehead, a gesture of deep respect. Hosts offer an array of sweets, including baklava, lokum (Turkish delight), sekerpare (syrup-soaked semolina cookies), and chocolate. Turkish coffee or tea is served in fine porcelain, and conversations last for hours as families catch up.

Children are the stars of Seker Bayrami. Dressed in new clothes, they go door to door in their neighborhoods, kissing the hands of adults and receiving candy, chocolate, and small amounts of money in return. The practice is so widespread that candy shops report their highest sales of the year in the week before Eid.

In Istanbul, the Blue Mosque and Sultanahmet Square host cultural events and free concerts. Turkish television broadcasts special Bayram programming, and newspapers run heartwarming Eid stories. Many Turks use the long weekend for domestic travel, filling buses and planes to capacity.

Islamic festival marking the end of Ramadan's month-long fasting, celebrated with communal Eid prayers, feasting, new clothes, gift-giving, and charity (zakat al-fitr) across the Muslim world.